Weird things

An old-fashioned leather-bound ledger book. Can't you smell the dusty books?

A plain, solid rocker blotter for blotting signatures and (depending on size) fairly large portions of a page.

A celluloid eyeshade--in green, of course! Sold for 25¢.

A gavel... these haven't changed much, if at all, in the 90 or so years since this one was sold.

Remember playing jacks in the spring? In those days, jacks were heavy, probably made of iron.

An old-fashioned call bell. "All nickel. Has a clear tone. Diam. 3 in. 70¢."

This served as the "do it now" filing system. Papers were jammed onto the spike for temporary filing and taken care of later.

Before the days of plastic, masks came mostly in paper or cloth. This one is a little spooky but I think it's supposed to be a princess.

The other half of the "jacks and tops" equation. While girls were off playing jacks, the boys were throwing tops against the wall to make them do tricks.

A cuspidor. ’nuff said.

The Diamond K Spiral Pen Rack. Would you entrust your precious pens to something like this?

A curtain mask, something you don't see these days. The lacy curtain over the lower face was supposed to provide mystery.

Official City Police and Firemen's Whistle from the early 1920s.

Another version of a top. This kind required some skill to wrap string around it and spin it so it would stay upright when it landed.

A gentleman modeling an eyeshade. Not as cool as the first one, but I can easily imagine him with a chewed stogie and sleeve garters.

"The Improved Polished Wood World's Fair Toothpicks."

Burns Regular Bracket. Talk about cumbersome! Imagine trying to maneuver a telephone held in this kind of a bracket!

I love this. A paper pumpkin mask, not very scary but awfully funny.

Tanglefoot Fly Ribbon. I remember this stuff as spiraling down from the barn roof, speckled with fly carcasses, but this makes it look almost cheerful.

A push-type top--you push down on the upper handle and it spins the top.

Louloup half mask--the kind we're accustomed to seeing in old black-and-white movies for masquerade balls.

This is just sad. It's supposed to be a Santa mask, but he looks so dispirited and bedraggled!

A sturdy, no-nonsense desktop paper spike, the murder weapon of many a detective novel.